New head honcho of Georgia prison system no chip off the ol' cell block

Posted: Monday, May 24, 1999

By Joan KirchnerAssociated Press

ATLANTA -- The man tapped last month to run Georgia's beleaguered prison system is a career cop who is as self-deprecating and deliberative as his predecessor was outspoken and shoot-from-the-hip.

Corrections Commissioner Jim Wetherington and former prison chief Wayne Garner both gave up cushy, high-paying jobs on the state parole board when governors called on them to take the helm of the prison system.

And that's where the similarities end.

''I'm not entertaining. I'm not flamboyant. I'm pretty dry,'' the 61-year-old Wetherington said, comparing himself to Garner. ''I've never made a quick decision in my life.''

While the glib-tongued Garner yanked inmate privileges, fired dozens of people and instituted controversial prison shakedowns immediately upon taking the job in 1995, the plain-spoken Wetherington is taking a slower approach.

Wetherington is inheriting a 40,300-inmate system that is bursting at the seams, reeling from constant bad publicity, and still stinging from the settlement last year of a federal lawsuit in which inmates alleged they were beaten during a shakedown in 1996.

''I'm not an alarmist and I don't want to say we're in a crisis situation, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done,'' Wetherington said.

''When you have 1,500 to 1,700 new (inmates) coming into Corrections each month and the system is already full, some folks might call that a crisis.''

One of the first problems Wetherington plans to tackle is the prison system's poor image, and he has a history of good public relations.

During his 36 years in the Columbus Police Department, where he rose from a beat cop to chief, Wetherington is remembered for injecting a much-needed dose of professionalism and for winning over a community distrustful of the department's corrupt past.

Wetherington also was at the helm in Columbus when the city's most notorious murderer, ''stocking strangler'' Carlton Gary, was caught in the early 1980s.

''When Chief Wetherington came along, he started changing attitudes, and it was not easy,'' said Columbus Police Chief Luther Miller, who worked with Wetherington for 30 years. ''He changed the perception of the police department in the eyes of the community.''

Wetherington is the polar opposite of Garner, the career politician who declared upon becoming prison chief in 1995 that a third of Georgia's inmates ''ain't fit to kill.''

But Garner's most controversial move was to dress up in black fatigues and join SWAT teams for surprise shakedowns at prisons. In the lawsuit that the state settled last year for $283,000, inmates and at least one guard testified that Garner stood watch as docile inmates were beaten. Garner was there, but denied witnessing any beatings.

Wetherington said raids for contraband will now be conducted by each prison's staff -- not outside SWAT teams -- and he doesn't plan to dress in fatigues and attend the shakedowns.

Wetherington said he will keep the inmates walking daily and will not replace the coveted weightlifting equipment.

A native of Campbellton, Fla., Wetherington is the son of a farmer and a homemaker whose first taste of law enforcement came as an 18-year-old recruit in the military police. While police work typically draws people with a lot of machismo, the tall, thin, easily approachable Wetherington got into the business simply because he wanted to help people.

''They say that I've always had a soft spot for the underdog. I'm sensitive to those folks who struggle in life,'' Wetherington said.

Within days of retiring from the Columbus department, former Gov. Zell Miller tapped Wetherington to serve on the Board of Pardons and Parole in 1996. And when Gov. Roy Barnes needed a replacement for Garner last month, Wetherington got the call.

Wetherington's wife, who runs the family's wholesale plumbing business in Columbus with their three grown children, thought her husband was crazy to take on such a controversial job when he was so close to retirement. He now commutes every week between his home in Columbus and an apartment in Atlanta.

''I told my family I don't want to die sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair,'' Wetherington said. ''I'm just not one to sit on the sidelines.''